The entertainment industry continues to flourish as the public ceaselessly demands an increasing array of talent and innovation to help relax from the tumultuous reality, or simply to satisfy their specific wants. Casino-type games and other entertainment forms that combine chance with skill have achieved a significant niche among a subset of society, both in the technological and traditional realm. Particularly in today's technological computer era, arcade games and other electronic devices have become very popular. As electronic games have increased in popularity, more casino-type games are enjoyed in a pure electronic format. One example is the usage of video poker.
In concept, video poker is enjoyed similar to traditional poker games and is designed to replicate many aspects of a hand of poker. In some formats, the player is not attempting to beat another player's hands or against a dealer's hand; the player is simply attempting to achieve the highest ranking poker hand possible from the cards displayed to the player. The higher the ranking of the poker hand achieved by the player, the greater the player's winnings based on the number of coins, tokens or credits wagered by the player. Typically, a payout schedule is posted on the gaming machine to advise the player of the payoffs available for certain winning card combinations.
The video poker systems generate the deck or decks of cards based on an algorithm or a form of a random number generator, electronically produces visual representations of cards on a display device, and allows a user to determine which card to “hold” and which cards to “discard”. The system then displays visual representations of replacement cards for the cards the player has discarded. The player wins or loses based on conventional poker hand rankings for the resulting five card hand.
While many aspects of the card game are recreated with the above mentioned systems, they lack several aspects of traditional card games and are prone to alteration and deception. For example, users of the electronic systems do not know if the machine really creates an accurate “deck” of cards, since there are no physical cards to verify. The users have no idea what algorithm is being utilized to “randomly” draw the cards and cannot be certain the software has not been altered to fix the odds.
Thus there is a need for methods and systems that enable players to enjoy amusement-type card games with assurance of accuracy and fairness. There also is a need to recreate aspects of traditional aspects of “live-dealing” in a card game. These and other advantages are successfully incorporated in embodiments of the present invention without sacrificing the element of amusement that many desire.